Offend your audience. Surprise your audience. But whatever you do, don't tell them what to do.

"The amateur can afford to lose," wrote media guru Marshall McLuhan. And that is the foundation of any great viral campaign -- doing what the professional or established personality cannot risk doing. Not to be one of those types who quotes from his own book, but as I wrote, "If you are not rabidly in support of something or actively disgusted by it, then it has no viral potential."

The amateur is the expert when it comes to offending and intriguing. Chris Crocker, the "Leave Britney Alone!" superstar, attracted millions of viewers by being a little demented. Tila Tequila is not a professional model or actress or singer. It's the amateur in her that makes Tila so attractive to MTV's viewership.

I love when an established media hack posts a 30-second clip of himself or herself on the "Today Show" to YouTube. "This will go viral," the semi-famous talking head assumes. And then it gets only 132 views, most of them from friends, family and his agent's bored assistant. Very little on TV is viral. Mostly it's the slip-ups and the unscripted moments that go viral. Take, for instance, Bill O'Reilly's meltdown video or WNBC's f-bomb gaffe.

A good viral premise goes after what the average person or company is not willing to do -- either because it goes outside the comfort zone or because it's difficult. David Blaine is famous for freezing himself in a block of ice, holding his breath and tormenting his body in various other ways. This is something most humans choose not to do. But many of Blaine's stunts are open to anyone with the drive -- and the lung capacity -- to do so.

"Rack 'Em Willie" is a popular YouTube clip on college campuses right now. It has millions of views. Someone tapes a homeless man muttering incoherent, profane things -- and inexplicably repeating the phrase "rack 'em." Is this funny? Not particularly. Is it even special? Not if you live in any large city -- Willie's shock value is pretty mediocre by NYC subway standards. What is special is that someone actually taped it. Anyone could spend his or her time following around crazies with a video camera. Most of us choose not to. Most of us stick with the 132 views; we don't go for the 40 million.

The Schweppes viral video is beautiful and intriguing enough that millions of people have forwarded it to their friends. The premise is simple: water balloons exploding in slow-motion. Most of us don't have access to high frame-per-second video cameras. As a result, the ad is showing us a world most of us are not privy to... and that brings us to the second viral method.

Viral exclusivity
Up until recently, I have been a practitioner of shock and awe. Do what others are capable of but don't actually do, either because they lack the guts or the savvy. Anyone could conceivably strum a guitar in his underwear at Times Square, but only the Naked Cowboy went for it and profited greatly. (Now there's a Naked Cowgirl from time to time, though.)

There's a second path to viral that is more difficult, but also more rewarding: exclusivity. When someone forwards a piece of online content to friends and coworkers, he is doing so for two reasons: 1) to share something that will surprise or impress others and 2) to show off his privileged information.

You can even include exclusivity in an otherwise non-viral piece of work. The viral embed, as I call it. "This is Spartaaaa," the Spartan king declares in the motion picture "300" before chest-kicking his enemy into a bottomless pit in the middle of the town square. (Incidentally, every town square should be equipped with a bottomless pit or two.) Kids who have seen the movie yell, "This is Spartaaaa" when they wrestle on the playground; they add "This is Sparta" graphics to their Facebook and MySpace pages; they adopt the ridiculous phrase and use it aggressively. Now, imagine you haven't seen "300," and everyone in your social circle is using the phrase at school. It forces you to see it: Do you want to be in on the joke, or not?

It's the same deal with "Why so serious?" in "The Dark Knight." Moviegoers put "Why so serious?" as their Facebook status, AOL away message and so forth. Those in the club know exactly what's being referenced. It creates exclusivity, and it forces acceptance seekers (aka everyone) to eventually see the movie.

This is undoubtedly why celebrity sex tapes remain one of the best viral mechanisms out there. It combines both elements: shock value and exclusivity. You have access to something you shouldn't have access to, and you want to spread the content to your online contacts so you will appear privileged. This is tricky, though.

Privileged information does not always go viral. If you stumble across a hardcore sex tape, even if it involves two incredibly famous people, you may not forward it because it will reflect poorly on you.

Here's another example. The internet is rife with conspiracy sites of all flavors and varieties. For example, I may see a PDF file of a government document definitively proving the CIA is involved in a wide-scale UFO cover-up (which is bogus; this is just an example). However, I may not forward it to my friends. The "weirdo" factor is too high. Privileged information needs to make the sender look cool: For example, check out this new James Franco comedy short I found on Funny or Die. Look at this slow-motion video of a bullet passing through an apple.

Packaging
Overly packaged content is rarely viral. Bill O'Reilly's freakout moment made online headlines because it had the chaos element -- it was not meant to be seen. If Fox News had advertised the clip -- "Go to FoxNews.com and view the O'Reilly clip everyone is talking about!" -- nobody would have cared.

The moment you tell someone what to do -- Add this video to Facebook! Add it to Delicious! Add to your bookmarks! Buy my book! -- the person won't do it. The internet favors anarchy, or at least perceived anarchy. Even if your viral video is a million-dollar production, it needs to look and feel amateur. People who forward it need to feel as if they have uncovered something meaningful. I may buy a pair of Nikes from time to time, but I don't send out mass emails telling my friends that their next pair of sneakers needs to be made by Nike. If you're big -- Nike or Bill O'Reilly big -- the best thing you can do is to shake off some of that gloss.

I'm thinking long-term, of course. Embarrassing viral content is painful at the moment it comes out, but it creates the framework for a much larger fan base. Even a relatively tame viral video, if executed properly, has the potential to be seen by an audience 10 times larger than that of "Larry King Live."

So, if nothing else: offend, surprise and package poorly.

David Seaman is founder of Shutterline Interactive, a vehicle for rapidly deploying new publicity stunts. His new book, "Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz," is now in bookstores nationwide and available on Amazon.